“You read that?”
“Yeah. In the
“Are you close to your father?”
Eric didn’t know what to say. He sat with Minas reading the paper every morning because his father liked the time together. The boy’s heart was thumping because of those violet eyes staring so intently at him.
“You want to take a drive with me?” Christie asked before Eric could formulate an answer about his father.
Th ey starte d k i s s i ng as soon as Christie parked at the lookout point in Topanga Canyon. Eric knew that he had never really kissed before that night. Christie told him that she loved Drew and so all they could do was kiss, but a moment later she was unzipping his pants. Eric thought of reminding her about just kissing, but instead, when he felt her cool fingers on his erection, all that came out was a deep, very masculine sigh. Christie echoed him in a higher register, and their kissing became more urgent.
She leaned back at one point and said, “Drew asked me to marry him and I said yes.”
1 0 6
F o r t u n a t e S o n
Eric nodded to show that he understood, but at the same time he thrust his pelvis forward, putting the straining erection near to her lips. She took it in her mouth and they both hummed.
When the boy came he roared out her name. She stared into his eyes, seeing both pain and gratitude. Her grip tight-ened until she worried that she might be hurting him, but she didn’t ease up or slow down.
After the tremors subsided, Christie lay down on top of Eric in the front seat.
“I’ve never met a guy like you, Eric Nolan,” she said, kissing the tip of his nose.
“Was that okay?” he asked.
“What?”
“I mean about Drew. You said we should just kiss.”
“That was like kissing,” she said. “I mean, we didn’t do it or anything.”
Eric noticed their breath misting chilly air.
“I think you should be a poet,” he said then. “I mean, people need poetry just as much as they need chemicals.”
Christie kissed him and reached down.
“You’re still hard,” she said, only slightly in awe.
“Let’s get in the backseat.”
She took her time rolling the condom down on his erection. He kissed the side of her neck and the cleft between her breasts while she did so. Eric felt awkward at first, but Christie didn’t seem to mind. She told him to be careful because she hadn’t had a lover so well endowed as he. When they came for the fourth time, they still shuddered as violently as the first.
“We shouldn’t do that again,” Christie told Eric the next night on the phone.
1 0 7
Wa l t e r M o s l e y
“Okay,” he said, still feeling spent from the night before.
“That’s all you have to say?”
“Isn’t that what you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you thinking I’m a slut who would do something like that with just anybody.”
“That was my first time,” Eric confessed. “I never even knew how wonderful it could be.”
“Oh. I didn’t know . . . you seemed like . . . I don’t know . . . experienced.”
“But we could see each other, right?” Eric asked. “I mean, we don’t have to do that. You know, I could ride my bike over.”
“Um . . . I think it would be better if we didn’t. You know, guys get kinda possessive after their first time.”
“Okay,” Eric said.
Christie didn’t reproach him this time.
“Well . . . I guess we should go,” she said.
“All right. Bye.”
For th e ne xt four nights Eric lay on his back in the bed for hours with his heart pounding and his mind on Christie.
He’d seen her in school three times. She always turned away when their eyes met. He didn’t know what he wanted more than to hold her again and to feel the release she gave him. He didn’t think he was in love. It was something else. Love for Eric had always been about smiling and swooning, about people who couldn’t live without each other. He lived without his mother and Branwyn too. He survived even when they took his brother away without a word of warning. He didn’t need anybody, but he sure wanted Christie.
That Friday, on the lunch court, Drew Peters confronted Eric.
1 0 8
F o r t u n a t e S o n
